An accidental Boxing Day newsletter

Or, "Whoops! There it is." Consider this a late Christmas gift, I guess.

I sent this out before I added an image, so I decided to try the “generate image” function on Substack for the hell of it. This is what came up when I typed the prompt “I forgot to write today.” I probably wasted about 200 gallons of hydropower for this incredibly lame image. I apologize to real artists for this. I hate AI.

“I felt overstuffed and dull and disappointed, the way I always do the day after Christmas.” (Sylvia Plath)

Hello, friends,

Welp, I completely forgot that this week’s newsletter would have to be a Boxing Day special. That is to say, I forgot the newsletter entirely and probably should have just scheduled an off day today.

Christmas was good. Quiet. I am more “overstuffed and dull” and much less “disappointed,” but I still liked that Sylvia Plath quote enough to begin this missive with it.

I caught up on sleep after getting up early to open gifts. (C and I grew up opening presents on Christmas Eve. But to sustain the Santa thing, we opened things on Christmas morning with F, so that’s what we always do now.) We watched anime and the “Steven Universe” DVDs we got with our new Blu-Ray player. And C made a lovely rib roast dinner with mashed potatoes, asparagus, and homemade bread.

Now the 12 days of Christmas are underway, and we’re back to whatever passes for “normal” at our house, except for more flashing lights here and there.

I don’t know what I plan to do with 2026. I learned back in March the ongoing “best laid plans of mice and men” lesson. Plans can go awry with a layoff notice, death in the family, or votes for massive budget cuts.

But I know some of what I’d like to do — stopping just short of “resolving” to do — in the coming year.

• Continue to build up my freelance business and my online sales ventures enough to never need a real job again.

• Spend less sad time on my phone.

• Read more analog books.

• Build a routine that supports a regular newsletter and art-making schedule.

• Write regularly enough to finally consider launching paid subscriptions.

• Purge a lot of paper that festers in my office as “ephemera” inventory.

• Journal enough to actually have a “journal ecosystem” that’s not just a cheap excuse to collect stickers.

• Learn enough about philately and postal history to write about the stamps I sell beyond how cool or pretty they are.

• Create some semblance of a healthy lifestyle.

• Be enough of myself publicly to never worry again about being cheesy or “cringe” or too much of something among people who don’t matter much anyway.

I’m sure I’ll write more about all this sometime. But not now. I mean, it’s the damn holidays. See you in 2026.

~ Joyce